Having one of the best superheroes, villains and stories to adapt isn’t always the perfect blend to have a successful film and that has been proven time and again by 20th Century Fox Studio with its Fantastic Four franchise. Announcing Fantastic Four 2′s release date even before the release of its third theatrical Fantastic Four film, might be one of the biggest mistakes it has done till date.
Fantastic Four 2 had a 2 June, 2017 release date, which has been currently pulled out from Fox’s upcoming movie slate. Even before the release of the third film, there were many speculations revolving around the film’s success due to the earlier reception it has garnered. Fox had acquired the license to the entire mutant clan of X-Men and Fantastic Four from Marvel back in 1990s. By far X-Men is the only Marvel Comic’s movie franchise that’s been successful at the box-office outside Marvel studios (for broader understanding check: How can Fox Studio’s loss be Marvel’s gain?)
The Fantastic Four is the first superhero team that’s been created by the demi-god of Marvel comics, Stan Lee and has went on to play an important part in the Marvel Universe. In 2005, when Fox released their big-budgeted Fantastic Four starring Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards, Jessica Alba as Sue Storm, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm (before his Captain America days) and Michael Chiklis as The Thing, comic fans were excited to see their favorite characters on the big screen. But the original along with its sequel failed miserably at the box office with not as much as domestically grossing over $300 million altogether.
Even though Fox had one of the evillest villains of all times, Doctor Doom, it still couldn’t manage to spin an amazing story and retain its fans. And with the recent superhero flop, Screen Junkies debuted its brutal Honest Trailer for the original film, voicing what most of the fans had in mind. The video states out all the things that went wrong in the film, right from actor’s performance to the villain, Doctor Doom and the storytelling along with the direction.
“It’s been 10 years since the last good Fantastic Four movie,” the narrator says as footage of Pixar’s The Incredibles appears. “Now, Fox must crank out another one or lose the rights to a studio that would do a much better job.”
With Fantastic Four 2’s release date out of Fox’s slate, does it mean that it’s time for Marvel to get hold of its rights, as seen earlier with Sony’s SpiderMan? Or is Fox finally planning to do a crossover of its hit Marvel franchise, X-Men and Fantastic Four? Whatever it is, we hope Fox makes the right call and does justice to Marvel’s first family comic characters.